Breathe
by waiting4morning
Summary: Saorise is an undergrad student involved in the Charon Relay Rebuilding Project when pirates attack. The only hope the small science team has is the rescue from the famous crew of the SSV Normandy. No pairings; post-ME3. OC narrator. Gift fic for sinvraal.


**A/N: Normally, I'm not a type to write major OCs for fanfic. I don't read them either, but I couldn't stop thinking of a typical "side mission" that you might find in the games but told from the perspective of the person getting rescued. Couple that with a gift fic idea presented by the amazingly talented Sinvraal who wanted Spectre Kaidan stuff, and this fic was born. Hope you like it.**

* * *

Saorise Hanari was having a bad day. She glared at the computer screen in her aunt's tiny office which blinked bold letters at her: "YOU LOSE."

That was typical of how her day was shaping up to be. She'd come along with the resupply ship to Station Nix to help her aunt; anything to get away from her friend Emily's family on Earth who were more concerned with their own than her. Not that she blamed them, of course. The Reaper War had taken so much, it was only natural that they'd try to continue on with their lives. But Saorise had lost her parents in the first wave of the invasion. She'd been at school—helpless, useless—while her parents were spliced open by Reaper tech.

Saorise grimaced and restarted the game, a mind-numbing puzzle game that thankfully took away the mental images of her parents as husks. But it didn't distract from what had just happened. Aunt Maeve hadn't wanted her to come along. The Charon Relay Rebuilding Project was a major initiative and she didn't need her niece underfoot. Saorise had resorted to begging.

"I won't be in the way, I promise. I can help you. I can… deliver stuff."

Aunt Maeve had sighed and relented only after Saorise had dropped a hint about Earth reminding her too much of her parents. It was a low blow, using her family to manipulate like that, but Aunt Maeve didn't understand what it was like to know that she wasn't needed or even wanted. Aunt Maeve was security chief on Station Nix—people looked up to her, people _needed_ her. Everyone on Earth seemed to be pitching together to help rebuild, but Saorise didn't have any useful skills or talents. Unless you counted reading. She had been a literature and language arts major. What could she do? Diagram sentences while people dug through rubble to find bodies? More than that, she was too small to help with anything useful. Sometimes she wondered if people even saw her. She didn't think they did; especially men.

Saorise felt a blush spread over her cheeks again as the other reason for her bad day came to mind. The Charon Rebuilding Project was a pretty Big Deal. They'd even somehow got the last prothean—an actual living prothean!—from Commander Shepard's team to come with them. Aunt Maeve said that the prothean had some weird ability to see into the past when he touched things and so the scientist hoped that if he touched some of the pieces of the relay that had broken off and been retrieved, he would be able to tell them something about them. But even that hadn't excited Saorise as much as the young engineering graduate student who was also part of the team. His name was Kurt and he was _cute_.

With her typical grace around guys she was attracted to, Saorise had promptly clammed up and said as little as possible around him, even when he seemed to want to talk. And now here she was hiding in her aunt's office, being useless as usual.

A sudden klaxon burst into angry sound above her, making Saorise jump in reflex, heart pounding. It wailed, lights flashing and she froze. What was happening? As quickly as it started, the klaxons went off—in fact, all the lights went off. The only light came from the view port. Saorise felt the whole station shudder. She knew, intellectually, that the station was built into the icy rock of the moon, but it didn't stop the irrational fears that it would fly off into space. Was it happening now? Unsticking her hands from their death grip on the chair, Saorise walked over to the window and looked out on the blackness of space.

Except there wasn't blackness. There was a ship.

That was when Saorise heard the first gunshot.

#

She shouldn't have pressed the button.

Barely daring to breathe, Saorise listened as the voices got louder as they approached the office.

"… they said they were all present, Max."

"Well they lied. Someone sent a distress call and the Boss isn't happy about it."

The ship Saorise saw outside the viewport wasn't a scheduled visit; in fact, it wasn't even a friendly visit. The screams and gunshots she'd heard meant only one thing: pirates. She didn't know who else would be attacking. The Reapers were all dead, weren't they? In her panic, she'd pressed the emergency button that was on her aunt's desk. Upon their arrival, her aunt had warned her about the button—as chief of security it was part of her job to monitor the whole station and activating the emergency alarms was part of that. They could be activated remotely, but in the event that she was at her desk, all she had to do was press the button.

And like an idiot, she'd pressed it. Why? _Why_ had she done something so stupid? They were looking for her now and she was going to get caught and killed and—

Saorise heard footsteps at the door.

"Check this office," grunted the one called Max. "I'll look in this utility closet."

"Whatever."

Saorise heard footsteps enter the room and bit her lip to keep from whimpering and revealing her hiding spot. She heard the man outside move around, but there wasn't a lot in the office to look at: a desk, a few cabinets, and that was it.

A silhouetted head poked into the closet. Saorise froze, eyes fixed on the intruder but the head backed out again.

"No one here, Max."

"Did you check that closet?"

"Of course I did," the man said, sounding irritated. "It's too small to fit anyone. Unless you think a pyjak sounded the alarm."

"I didn't find anything either. Might have been set off automatically when we docked without clearence. Anyway, let's get back to the cafeteria. The Boss is gathering the rest of the people on this rock."

"I still don't think this is a good idea, Max," said the first one in a lower voice. "We came to get supplies; cash. We're not supposed to hurt anyone."

"Shut up! Do you want everyone to hear you?" Max hissed. "Look, I didn't sign up for this either, but we got here late and this is what we have to deal with. The Boss thinks we can get some extra for the hostages."

The footsteps and voices faded away, but it was a long time before Saorise dared move from her confined hiding spot. According to her omni-tool, a couple of hours had passed. But what lured her out was the complete opposite of what had made her hide in the first place. Her aunt's computer was lighting up. And since this was the chief of security office that only meant one thing: someone was trying to contact the station.

She listened hard, but no one came to investigate the soft _ping_ of the computer's communication system. Moving with agonizing slowness—her legs had cramped up—she emerged from the closet and, tiptoeing to the door, closed and locked it. Only then did she, with shaking hands, get back on the computer, closing the game she'd been playing and opening the communications network.

"Hello?" she said in a low voice. "Is anyone there? Please help!"

"Station Nix, we read you," said a husky voice on the other end. "This is SSV _Normandy_ of the Alliance. We received your distress call. What's the situation?"

"Pirates!" Saorise hissed. "They've taken everyone hostage; I heard a couple of them talking about it. I'm in the chief of security's office; they don't know I'm here, but they might come back. Please hurry!"

"Alright, ma'am, we're on our way," the voice changed tone slightly, becoming calm and conversational. "What's your name?"

Saorise clenched her hands to keep them from trembling. "Saorise Hanari." She paused. "What's yours?"

"Major Kaidan Alenko, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."

The name sounded really familiar, but Saorise was too distressed to try to figure out why. But a Spectre… that was good, right? Commander Shepard was a Spectre. "I'm just an undergrad," she said softly, "of literature. I won't be any help at all."

"Not true," replied Spectre Alenko. "You've been a help already by setting off that distress beacon and by being smart enough to hide from the intruders. Without you, we wouldn't have our inside man. Or woman, in this case."

Saorise leaned her head on her hand. "I guess so."

A moment's pause and then Spectre Alenko spoke again. "Saorise, I need to talk with my team for a few minutes. I'll be right back, okay?"

"Okay," she whispered, fingers gripping the edge of the desk with white knuckles. She wasn't even aware that she was holding her breath until her lungs started to burn. Trying to breathe normally was hard, but she made an effort, trying to recall her yoga instructor's cheerful voice from class calling out poses, reminding them all to breathe. She'd only taken some yoga because her roommate hadn't wanted to go alone. It seemed like another lifetime ago: class, yoga, friends…

"Saorise?" It was the smoky voice of the Spectre.

She sat up straight, forgetting to breathe again. "Yeah?"

"We managed to get hold of a station schematic. You're very close to the security office, aren't you?"

Saorise remembered the brief tour when they first arrived. This was her aunt's office, but the actual working security room was a few doors down where the rest of the security force worked. "Rest of" meaning Jak and Iris. It had been a small station, after all, full of scientists, not criminals. Jak and Iris had been nice to her and they were probably dead. She bit back a sob.

"Saorise?"

"Y-yes. When… when are you going to rescue us?"

A hesitation on the other line. "We've attempted to contact the pirate holding the crew hostage, but he's not willing to negotiate and has threatened… the safety of the hostages if we attempt a brute force entry. The _Normandy_ is sitting outside the line of site from any viewports with stealth engaged, but we need you to override the security lockdown so we can dock without the pirates being alerted." He paused. "Can you do it?"

"No!" The automatic reply left her mouth without a thought. "I mean… I'm not trained in… in this kind of stuff! I… I don't even have a gun—"

"Listen," said Spectre Alenko's voice on the line, calm and soothing, "I'm not going to force you to do anything, and I have people working on an alternate solution. But the fact is the longer a hostage situation goes on, the less likely it is that it will be resolved peacefully and I plan to get everyone out alive, including you, Saorise."

Saorise listened to herself breathe for a moment. _In. _Aunt Maeve was in there, probably furious at the priates. She was the only family Saorise had left. Wouldn't she fight for her when she hadn't been able to for her parents? _Out._ What ccould she have done even if she had been home with her parents? She'd be a husk too. _In._ But maybe that would be better than being alone… Saorise blew out a breath.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she nodded, though it was more for herself since the line to the _Normandy_ was only audio. "Okay," she whispered. "I'll do it."

"Thanks, Saorise," the Spectre sounded relieved. "Our infrared shows that no one is in the corridor. I wouldn't ask you to do this otherwise. A guard is patrolling the large room to the right of you, but if you go now, he won't see you. Can you give me your omni-tool location number? That way I can track you and keep in contact."

Saorise read off the number and palmed the door release with a sweaty hand. She glanced right and left quickly, hair swinging madly, but she didn't see anyone. With quick steps as silent as she could make them, she crept down the corridor. Yesterday, during the tour it had seemed incredibly small, but now it seemed like the door to the office was an impassable distance. Without breathing, she made it to the door… and found it locked. Eyes widening in terror, she activated her omni-tool link with the Normandy and typed a frantic message.

_It's locked! _The security lockdown had locked her out of the room she needed to be in.

The reply was nearly instantaneous. _I'm sending a hacking program to your omni-tool. All you have to do is press 'execute'. The guard isn't coming your way yet; don't worry._

She watched as the download progress bar filled with agonizing slowness, glancing up to watch the opposite end of the corridor in case the guard came back.

A text message popped up on her screen: _The guard is moving again. Get back into hiding, quick!_

At that moment the download finished. She pressed the execute button and lights danced across her omni-tool. At the head of the corridor, she heard a footstep.

_Saorise, move!_

The door swished open and she dove inside, locking it with trembling fingers.

"You did it." There was a _whoosh_ of air accompanying the voice from her omni-tool, as if he'd been holding his breath too. "Infrared shows the guard moving away again. He didn't see you. Good work, Saorise." The warm praise evident in the voice nearly made her blush, and she looked up at the room around her for the first time to distract herself from thinking too much about Spectres with sexy voices. The absurdity of the emotion nearly made her giggle hysterically; kidnappers close by and she was thinking about how attractive a man sounded?

_Focus, Saorise_, she told herself with a mental shake, and looked around at the office more closely.

The room looked as it did the day before: several monitors showing camera feeds from all over the station, a gun locker against the wall, two cups of coffee on the desk. But thankfully no sign of Iris or Jak... she'd half been expecting blood splatter, like on crime show vids. If they had been shot, it hadn't been here. Saorise began to hope that maybe they were taken hostage like the rest of the team.

"Saorise, we have reason to believe that the pirates may be a human supremacist group. Records show there are several non-humans on the science team, correct?"

Saorise swallowed. "Yeah. Dr. Laranya and Dr. Reshi are asari. There are several others. I don't remember all their names. There's also a couple of turians—Jak is a security officer—and a few salarians whom I didn't meet. They were really busy when I took the tour."

"That seems to match what our roster shows…"

"Oh," Saorise said, suddenly remembering. "There's also the prothean. You know, the one from Commander Shepard's team?" The moment she said it, the name Kaidan Alenko clicked. He had been on the Commander's team! The media even speculated that they were lovers and had made much of the tragedy of the Commander lying in a coma, unable to rise from her hospital bed and reunite with the Major of her heart. Saorise was talking with a legend. The realization made her momentarily mute with shock, but Spectre Alenko didn't seem to notice.

"Javik?" Spectre Alenko muttered something in aside to someone outside the range of the comm. "Okay. We need to disable that lockdown and get in there."

With the Spectre's guidance, Saorise deactivated the security lockdown. Then all she had to do was sit and wait. She imagined the _Normandy_, how she'd seen it last on the news, sleek and shining, docking at an empty airlock. Imagined where Spectre Alenko's team would land, securing the area, and finally make their way to her.

"We're here," said Spectre Alenko over her omni-tool a short time later. Saorise palmed the door release and stepped back as three heavily armored figures strode into the room. Two of them appeared to be human, while the other was clearly a quarian female.

The larger of the two humans took off his helmet, revealing a battle-scarred face and a nose that had been broken a couple of times. He looked at her and grinned. "You're just a kid."

Saorise scowled. "Just because I'm short doesn't mean I'm a kid."

"Don't mind him," said a familiar husky voice. Spectre Alenko removed his helmet and smiled at her in a way that made Saorise believe the rumors about him and Commander Shepard immediately. How any woman could resist that smile and those eyes was beyond her imagination. "Nice to finally meet you, Saorise." He shook her hand. "The rude one is James. This is Tali'Zorah."

"I'm gonna see if Scars is done with the prisoner yet," said James, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

"Prisoner?" repeated Saorise.

"We neutralized the guard patrolling the room down the hallway," said the quarian, already intent on the videos, her three-fingered hands tapping through the controls. "Garrus is… interviewing him."

The one called Garrus proved to be a turian with gray plating and a crater-like scar on the side of his head. Spectre Alenko was examining the guns from the locker as the turian entered the room. "The pirate is, uh, what's the phrase? Singing like a bird?"

"Glad to see all your politicking hasn't dulled your interrogation skills, Scars," smirked James.

"I'm sorry to see that N7 training hasn't dulled your wit, Jimmy," said Garrus with a flex of his mandibles that Saorise thought was the equivalent of a grin. Her xeno-cultural studies class had been cut short by Earth getting attacked. The turian turned to address Spectre Alenko again. "I didn't have to do anything to him. Took one look at me and started babbling." He chuckled, the noise sounding like crackling gravel, and scratched at the scar on his face with one long talon. "Kid says he didn't sign up for hurting people and was willing to tell me all he knew."

"Which was?"

The turian shook his head. "Not much, unfortunately. The group here is a small part of a larger pirate gang that has been worrying at the fringes of our forces trapped in the Sol system. A heist here and there; black market food and supplies and weapons, that kind of thing. Some violence but nothing out of the ordinary. The group here is a splinter cell with more human supremacy leanings."

"How'd a simple pirate gang get all the way out to Pluto?" Spectre Alenko asked, frowning.

"I'm getting to that," Garrus said, leaning against the wall. "Kid says that the 'Boss'—one Damian Marcovy—started targeting non-human ships almost exclusively awhile back. But the backlash has been strong and since we're all trapped in one system, word gets around quickly. They haven't had much luck lately; there are more patrols, traps being set for them. Marcovy was getting desperate so they decided to hit here—Station Nix. It was supposed to be a small time B and E because the station was supposed to be empty until the science team arrived. It's been all over the news that the team was heading out here to work on the Charon Relay. They'd hoped to get here ahead of the science team, grab whatever valuables they could, and leave before anyone showed up. But they were late and before this kid knew what was happening, Marcovy had taken everyone hostage."

"What about Javik and the other non-humans?" asked Spectre Alenko, brows furrowed.

The turian shook his head again. "When they first got here, Javik managed to kill one of the men before they subdued him. After that, the kid was sent to patrol and didn't see what Marcovy did with the rest."

A sober silence filled the room.

"They're alive," Tali'Zorah said, tapping a control and pointing at one of the screens showing a huddled group of aliens in what looked like a narrow janitor's closet. The prothean was lying prone on the floor, but he seemed to be breathing. The asari and salarians sat or stood near, heads bowed in obvious dejection.

"Why haven't the asari broken free?" asked James, frowning. "They have biotics, after all. Seems to me they could make short work of these goons."

Spectre Alenko glanced over his shoulder. "Not every asari has combat training, James. You should have seen Liara when we first picked her up. Flat out refused to go out on missions at first."

"Freckles? Really?" James looked stunned. "Huh."

"Besides," Spectre Alenko continued, "the pirates might have threatened to hurt the hostages if they attempted to fight." He tapped the quarian on the arm. "Watch the feeds. See if we can account for all the pirates and get a sense of their movements. James, you watch this feed showing the human hostages. If anything looks off—any illness, any injury, whatever—let me know. I'm going to open negotiations again and I need to know more before I talk to him."

"Yes, sir," James said with a nod and slid into the second seat next to Tali. Garrus went back to keep an eye on the prisoner which left Saorise to the Spectre. He saw her standing silent and watchful and dug into a compartment at his utility belt. He held out a wrapped protein bar.

"You hungry? How long have you been holed up here?"

Saorise took the bar eagerly, feeling how very hungry she was all of a sudden. "A few hours," she said, chewing off a chunk of the bar. "But it feels longer." She swallowed, suddenly feeling sick.

"Is something wrong?" Spectre Alenko frowned when she didn't take another bite.

"It's just…" Saorise fiddled with the wrapper to the protein bar. "It's stupid," she said with a shrug. "I wish I was useful… of all people not to get taken hostage, it had to be me: a humanities major. Jak or Iris—they're the security officers—would have done a lot better than I have." She gave a wry smile at the irony and nibbled at the bar again.

Spectre Alenko regarded her thoughtfully. "You're very hard on yourself, Saorise. Not many civilians would be as brave as you were. You stayed calm in a hostile environment, you did what we needed you to do, and you haven't been discovered. I'd call that impressive."

Saorise shook her head. "I wasn't calm," she protested. "I was scared out of my mind. The only thing that made me move was the thought that they might hurt my aunt and then I'd be all alone." She swallowed hard, some of her fear returning. "It wasn't bravery at all."

Spectre Alenko looked at her again, and she had to look away. "I find that the popular definition of bravery is mostly bull. Bravery is doing what you think is right, even if you are scared; even if there are obstacles in the way. Only idiots aren't scared of anything. I wouldn't want a person on my team who didn't sometimes experience a healthy dose of fear."

Saorise looked up at him, surprised.

"My… a good friend of mine once said that we do the best with what we have and if we fail, we pick ourselves back up and vow to do better," he said, eyes distant for a moment before focusing back on her. "So, I'll say it again. Good work, Saorise."

"Thank you," she said quietly, ducking her head to eat more of the protein bar.

"Yo, Luciano?" James gestured at the Spectre to come look at the screen. "Most of the hostages seem okay. Only injury I spotted was an old lady with a bloody lip."

Saorise stood on her tiptoes to see over the armored elbows blocking her view and scanned the screens, letting out a small gasp as she spotted the woman James had mentioned. "That's Aunt Maeve!" Her hands came up to cover her face. "Oh no…"

"I'm sure she's okay," Spectre Alenko said soothingly.

Saorise let out a weak laugh. "That's not what I mean…" She scanned the screens until spotting one of the pirates who clearly had a broken nose because of the way he was gingerly fingering it and his two black eyes. "She must have fought back."

"Tough old bird," said James with admiration, "no wonder they tied her wrists together."

"I just hope she stays down now," Saorise said, shaking her head. "I'll bet she's mad…"

James continued with the rest of his observations. "It's been a couple of hours. They've gotta be getting hungry or needing to use the head. Maybe you could work with him on that? Maybe even offer to get the aliens off his hands at least?"

"I've counted about a twenty guards plus Marcovy," Tali added. "Most are in the cafeteria where the bulk of the human hostages are being held. Others are scattered throughout the station, looking for valuables probably."

Spectre Alenko nodded. "What's the access to the cafeteria like, Tali?"

Her fingers flew across the keyboard, bringing up a station schematic. "Two main routes in and out, both of which are guarded by goons."

"Secondary access points?"

"Negligible. There is an air duct here," she pointed to a wall, "but it's small. Even I'd have trouble fitting."

"Alright, keep thinking. I'm going to try to contact Marcovy again." Spectre Alenko exited the room. Saorise was on the verge of asking why they were continuing to negotiate—why didn't they just storm the cafeteria and take out the bad ugys? But a glance at the monitors reminded her: the hostages. All it would take is a stray round to kill one of the civilians. And hadn't this Marcovy threatened them already? Saorise shivered. It was definitely better to negotiate. Maybe they all would get out of this alive.

Silence fell in the room broken only by Tali's little mutterings to herself as she fiddled with the computers and the faint hum of her rebreather. James eyed Saorise with a grin.

"So, Sorcha—"

"It's pronounced _seer-sha_," she corrected automatically. Years of classroom teachers incorrectly pronouncing her name made her used to it.

He raised his hands. "Sorry. _Saorise_," he said, rolling the word off his tongue with a distinctly Latin flavor. "You got a man in your life?"

Saorise stared at him. "You just called me a kid and now you're flirting with me?"

"Well you're not that much younger than me, right? Your height threw me off is all," he said with an unapologetic grin.

"He flirts with everyone," Tali said in dry voice, not looking up from her screens. "He flirted with our commander while she was knocking him senseless."

"That's all part of the dance, Sparks," he said with a laugh. "I like a woman who can fight back."

"I need to introduce you to Jack sometime," Tali said. Saorise could almost hear the grin in her voice.

"The tattooed biotic?" He sat up straighter. "Yeah, I'd like that. Want to ask if she noticed my super-awesome skills when we helped take Grissom Academy."

Tali was laughingly asking if James preferred broken bones during courtship when Spectre Alenko rushed through the door, face pale.

"Did you see it?"

The two team members turned to their screens. "See what—Keelah!"

Saorise rushed over in time to see the last of the asari doctors get hit over the head with a gun and collapse to the floor. The others were in similar states… one lay on the floor, a pool of violet blood spreading beneath her. Saorise backed away from the screen, feeling sick. Spectre Alenko swore and ran a hand through his hair. "The negotiation was going smoothly. I had just managed to get him to agree to bathroom breaks and a meal when the asari doctors decided to try something. Marcovy dropped the connection, and I can't get back to him."

"Brave idiots," James said in a low voice, shaking his head.

"Kaidan, I have an idea," Tali said in a slow voice. "I don't know if it's a good one but if it works, it could incapacitate the pirates. But the downside is that it will incapacitate the hostages too."

"What is it?"

Tali pulled a palm-sized disk from her utility belt. It was about the size of a hockey puck but with smooth, rounded edges. "I can modify this tech grenade so that it emits a high frequency sound that will temporarily disorient and deafen anyone without unprotected hearing. Our helmets should protect us—Garrus and I will be fine regardless as it is a pitch directed for human hearing—but this will also affect the hostages as well."

Spectre Alenko ran a hand over his face. "It's worth a try at least. Marcovy's too tense to negotiate. He's expecting us to storm the room now and is threatening the hostages. I gotta back off until he cools down."

"There's one other thing, Kaidan," Tali said. "This kind of weapon only works if it's precise. We can pump in the sound over the station's audio system, but there's a wall in the cafeteria that won't be covered by the speakers in that room." She pointed to the schematic again. "We need to find a way to plant this grenade along the wall so that sound is coming in from all directions. The obvious solution is the duct I mentioned earlier."

"I'll do it," Saorise said, startling everyone in the room including herself. "I'm small; I can fit in the duct."

"No way," Spectre Alenko said, shaking his head. "I'm not putting a civilian in danger. It was bad enough to make you come to this room at the risk of being seen."

"But you said it earlier, it's too small for any of you, even the quarian," Saorise said, heart pounding. What was she doing? She should accept what he said and back down, but she kept arguing anyway. "I can crawl in there, plant the grenade and crawl back out with no one the wiser. I won't be in any danger because the pirates won't know I'm there."

"She has a point, Kaidan," said Garrus who'd just stepped into the room, back from questioning the prisoner again for any details he may have left out. "We're running out of options here how that it's turned violent. Unless you want to risk Marcovy getting set off again and killing more of the non-humans, we gotta move fast."

Spectre Alenko's face hardened and he nodded. Tali'Zorah showed Saorise the route she would need to take through the ducts to get to the cafeteria. "Once you place the grenade," she said, purple faceplate intent on the human girl in front of her, "you'll have fifteen seconds before it automatically goes off. I'll set it so it's synced with the rest of the audio. You'll want to use that time to get back here."

James hefted a helmet he'd found in the security office's closet. "This will be for you once you get back; it might protect your ears from the worst of the sonic blast."

"Okay," Saorise said nodding. Exiting the room with the Spectre and Tali'Zorah, Saorise found herself still frightened, but like Spectre Alenko had said: she knew this was the right thing to do, even if she didn't want to do it. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to think of the asari laying dead on the floor. More of them might die if she didn't.

"You okay?" Spectre Alenko glanced at her, eyebrows furrowed

Mouth dry, she nodded and ducked down next to Tali'Zorah who was quickly unscrewing the plate that covered the entrance to the duct she would take. It popped off and Tali held it aside. The entrance was indeed small. Tali might have fit but she would be crawling on her elbows the whole way. Saorise took a deep breath. Spectre Alenko put a hand on her shoulder.

"Be careful," he said in his low voice. "Don't rush; take what time you need." He searched her face but didn't seem to have any more to say. "Good luck."

She nodded in thanks and crawled into the opening in the wall.

#

The metal beneath her hands was cold, but at least she wouldn't be at risk for the fans coming on while she was inside. The quarian had promised to turn them off. She came to an intersection, like she'd seen in the schematics and took a right, checking the copy on her omni-tool for reference, just in case.

She breathed.

_In_. Easy, peasy, she told herself. Get within a meter of the bad guys and plant the grenade.

_Out. _I'll have to crawl really fast to get back here within the time limit.

_In_. But at least the deafness won't be permanent.

_Out._ Aunt Maeve will be amazed. At this thought a hysterical bubble of laughter forced its way up her throat, but she swallowed it, still fighting a stupid grin. _Breathe, Saorise._ So she counted her breaths again, like she was in yoga and this was no more than a challenging pose, not a weird crawling, wriggling motion in the walls of a station built on one of the moons of Pluto.

Soon, she started hearing voices. She was close to the cafeteria. Slowing her wobbling crawl, she edged forward, seeing the light from the grate ahead of her. She kept moving forward until she could reach out with one arm and touch the grate. Inhaling softly through her nose, she eased the tech grenade out of her pocket, but her hands were sweaty and the disc slipped from her fingers to bounce against the metal floor of the duct with a reverberating clang.

She grabbed the grenade and thrust it back in her pocket just as a face popped in front of the grate and glared at her with angry surprise.

"What are you doing in there?" The face turned and yelled back over his shoulder. "Boss! We got a stowaway!"

Saorise was frozen. Eyes wide, body tense, she could only watch as two of the men pulled the grate off the duct and jerked her out of it.

"Who are you?" the larger one yelled her face, grabbing her arm and yanking her nearly off her feet. "What are you doing in there?"

"I… I was h-hiding," she whimpered. The large one—a man with bulging muscles and dark eyes—scowled at her, shaking her again.

"Why didn't we find you earlier, huh? Maybe you're with the commandos, is that it?"

"No!" she squeaked. "I was… I was hiding."

"Leave her alone!" A stir to the side revealed Saorise's aunt, struggling to her feet in spite of her tied hands. "That's my niece."

The big man pushed Saorise toward her aunt, who stumbled with the force of the push and ended knocking them both to the floor. He laughed and turned to one of the pirates that had pulled her out. "Anyone else in there?"

The guard shook his head. "No way anyone else could fit. She's a tiny one; not surprising we didn't find her."

Someone helped a dazed Saorise back on her feet. She looked up to see Kurt, his face pale and worried helping her to stand.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a low voice. "He was kind of rough with you."

"F-fine," she managed to reply, helping Kurt as he knelt down to help her aunt stand too. It was harder for her, since her hands were tied behind her back, but Maeve showed no signs of being cowed. In fact, she looked at their captors with renewed contempt, as if they were beneath her notice. Once she had her balance, she nodded her thanks to Kurt and Saorise with all the dignity of a queen. Before, Saorise had usually been intimidated by her aunt. They'd never been close and Maeve had no children of her own. But now she seemed to give her hope by her continuing strength. This wasn't the end yet, she—

Saorise's eyes widened as she felt the lump in her pocket. She still had the grenade. Once she primed it, the audio system would go live too, that's how Tali had programmed it. The guards were ignoring her now and Kurt was pulling her toward a spot against the wall, near a potted plant. Looking around, she spotted one of the security cameras. Now she just had to—

"What were you doing in there?" hissed her aunt as they sat back down. "I would have thought you had more sense than to come out of hiding just to see what's going on."

Saorise eyed the guards, but they were talking in low mutters to each other. "There's a Spectre on the station; his ship caught my distress signal. I've been working with them to get everyone out of this, but I dropped the grenade like an idiot."

"Spectre? Signal? Grenade?" Kurt repeated, his dark eyebrows rising so high they nearly disappeared under his hairline.

Saorise explained the plan to them in a hushed voice. "So I just need to prime the grenade and then they'll come in and subdue the pirates."

Kurt frowned. "Won't we be affected by the sound too?"

Saorise nodded. "I'm afraid that's how it has to be. At least we won't be getting in their way."

To her surprise, Maeve nodded her agreement. "A simple plan but effective." She glanced across the room where some of the hostages had covered up the asari doctor's body with their lab coats. "Marcovy is too easily set off. This has to end."

"If I can get the grenade primed without the guards seeing it…"

"I'll distract them," Kurt said, face pale but his voice was resolute. "You be ready." Without waiting for a protest, he stood and walked to the nearest guard.

Aunt Maeve's eyes followed him. "Brave, for an engineer," she murmured, sounding impressed.

"We need to use the bathroom," Kurt said.

"Hold it," sneered the guard.

"Listen," Kurt said, sounding tired, "we're going to be here for awhile and sooner or later, bladders are going to give out. Do you want to be stuck in this room with piss all over the floor? Just let us go to the bathroom, in groups of two or three guarded by one of you guys and it'll be over within a half hour."

The guard scowled at him but didn't object. After a moment he growled out, "Fine. I'll ask the Boss, but it's on your head if he's not in a mood to accommodate whiny prisoners."

As the guard walked away, Kurt stood standing, as if waiting his return, but in reality shielding Saorise from view. Without waiting further, Saorise tugged the silver disc from her pocket, pressed the safety release and the arming button. With shaking hands, she put it next to the planter and, catching sight of one of the security cameras, gave it a small thumbs-up sign. She and her aunt quickly left that side of the room and lay down on the floor, whispering what was going to happen to their neighbors.

Maeve turned her face to Saorise. "I'm very proud of you. We should—"

But Saorise never got to hear what her aunt was going to say because the weaponized sound pierced through the air at that moment, making thinking impossible. She'd seen Reapers, their laser blasts decimating the ground. The sound felt like one of those lasers going through her ear canals, but that soon stopped with blessed numbness. Laying prone on the floor as she was, she could see that the plan had worked. The pirates were either unconscious or writhing about on the floor in pain, their guns forgotten. She saw a blue-armored figure with the little white phoenix on his chest slam through the entry to the cafeteria, raising his hand so that a pirate flew to the side in a wave of blue power. Marcovy, though deafened, seemed to have regained his senses before any of his other men, aimed a gun at the Spectre's head.

As if in slow motion, though maybe that was just the fuzzy edges around her vision, Spectre Alenko swatted the gun aside, his hand wreathed in blue flame, and punched Marcovy in the jaw. The pirate went down and didn't get up again.

Saorise felt herself smiling before the world went dark.

#

Saorise was having a good day.

Several hours later, Saorise and the rest of the former hostages were up and around, some even laughing in small groups, which was no small feat after their ordeal. Alliance medics had arrived soon after the raid of the cafeteria to tend to the wounds. All in all, the hostages had fared well: there were some broken eardrums. Others whose deafness was lingering longer, though still getting better with every hour, and most everyone had a headache, even the non-humans.

The only damper on the high spirits was the remembrance of poor Dr. Reshi, the asari, who was the only fatality, not counting the pirate that the prothean Javik had killed upon their first attack. Spectre Alenko and his team had subdued Marcovy and the rest of the gang and transferred them to a Fifth Fleet ship that arrived for the purpose of transporting the prisoners.

But Saorise's freedom and subsequent return to the hearing world wasn't the only reason the day was good…

"That's so weird that we went to the same school," said Kurt in a slightly too-loud voice as they ate a hastily prepared meal. Because of the hostage situation, the kitchen staff hadn't had time to prepare for dinner, so everyone was eating whatever could be quickly cobbled together. In this case, Kurt was eating scrambled eggs and toast, while Saorise was happily chewing through a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"I know!" she replied. "I mean, there's no way we would have run into each other you being in engineering stuff and me being a lit major, but what if we had?"

Kurt smiled a little shyly. "Yeah… we could have spent some time together."

Saorise felt her cheeks warm up. _Do it anyway, Saorise. Even though you're scared. _"We… we could spend some time together now?" Her face felt like it was on fire and she hated the way her voice had lifted at the end, making a statement into a question.

But Kurt's smile widened. "I'd like that."

"Saorise?"

She turned to see the Spectre and his team behind him. She stood as they walked over. "We're headed out. I just wanted to thank you again for your help," Spectre Alenko said, shaking her hand. "You getting captured was the last thing I wanted to happen, but… well, I'm glad everything turned out the way it did."

Saorise nodded, thanked him for coming, and watched the collection of armored heroes turn to leave.

"Spectre!"

He turned, looking at her quizzically. She felt herself blush under that gaze again.

"Um, could you… are you going to visit Commander Shepard when you get back?"

He looked surprised but nodded. "I am."

"Could you tell her… thanks, from all of us. I mean, she's probably heard it from the military over and over again, but maybe not from someone like me. A civilian, I mean."

A smile spread over his face and he nodded before putting on his helmet. "I will, Saorise. Good luck."

Kurt came up beside her to watch them leave. "Crazy day, huh?"

Saorise nodded, smiling. "But ending on a good note, right?"

He smiled down at her and Saorise felt her insides squirm with delight. "Yeah."


End file.
